Earlier this year, in February, I wrote a blog post encouraging people to donate to where I work, Software Freedom Conservancy. I've not otherwise blogged too much this year. It's been a rough year for many reasons, and while I personally and Conservancy in general have accomplished some very important work this year, I'm reminded as always that more resources do make things easier.
I understand the urge, given how bad the larger political crises have gotten, to want to give to charities other than those related to software freedom. There are important causes out there that have become more urgent this year. Here's three issues which have become shockingly more acute this year:
- making sure the USA keeps it commitment to immigrants to allow them make a new life here just like my own ancestors did,
- assuring that the great national nature reserves are maintained and left pristine for generations to come,
- assuring that we have zero tolerance for abusive behavior — particularly by those in power against people who come to them for help and job opportunities.
Nevertheless, as I plan my primary donations this year, I'm again, as I always do, giving to the FSF and my own employer, Software Freedom Conservancy. The reason is simple: software freedom is still an essential cause and it is frankly one that most people don't understand (yet). I wrote almost two years ago about the phenomenon I dubbed Kuhn's Paradox. Simply put: it keeps getting more and more difficult to avoid proprietary software in a normal day's tasks, even while the number of lines of code licensed freely gets larger every day.
As long as that paradox remains true, I see software freedom as urgent. I know that we're losing ground on so many other causes, too. But those of you who read my blog are some of the few people in the world that understand that software freedom is under threat and needs the urgent work that the very few software-freedom-related organizations, like the FSF and Software Freedom Conservancy are doing. I hope you'll donate now to both of them. For my part, I gave $120 myself to FSF as part of the monthly Associate Membership program, and in a few minutes, I'm going to give $400 to Conservancy. I'll be frank: if you work in technology in an industrialized country, I'm quite sure you can afford that level of money, and I suspect those amounts are less than most of you spent on technology equipment and/or network connectivity charges this year. Make a difference for us and give to the cause of software freedom at least as much a you're giving to large technology companies.
Finally, a good reason to give to smaller charities like FSF and Conservancy is that your donation makes a bigger difference. I do think bigger organizations, such as (to pick an example of an organization I used to give to) my local NPR station does important work. However, I was listening this week to my local NPR station, and they said their goal for that day was to raise $50,000. For Conservancy, that's closer to a goal we have for entire fundraising season, which for this year was $75,000. The thing is: NPR is an important part of USA society, but it's one that nearly everyone understands. So few people understand the threats looming from proprietary software, and they may not understand at all until it's too late — when all their devices are locked down, DRM is fully ubiquitous, and no one is allowed to tinker with the software on their devices and learn the wonderful art of computer programming. We are at real risk of reaching that distopia before 90% of the world's population understands the threat!
Thus, giving to organizations in the area of software freedom is just going to have a bigger and more immediate impact than more general causes that more easily connect with people. You're giving to prevent a future that not everyone understands yet, and making an impact on our work to help explain the dangers to the larger population.
